Former first lady Barbara Bush donated an undisclosed amount of money to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund with specific instructions that the money be spent with an educational software company owned by her son Neil.
The problem with this logic is that, if citizens and shareholders start thinking this way in a more general sense, we will demand accountability from everyone who manages anything of ours — from CEOs who effectively manage our retirement assets to presidents and vice presidents who manage our fiscal health as a nation. In these situations, the stakes are considerably higher than in a garden-variety hedge fund, so if anything the level of accountability should be raised to meet the seriousness of the situations they manage.
Therefore, we should send Bush-Cheney an invoice for the $2 trillion they squandered as a result of their mismanagement of the United States of America.
Glisan described as "ugly" a meeting in late 2001 in The Woodlands, TX, where top executives described Enron's dour financial straits.
Heads of the various business units who were at the meeting were accustomed to touting their financial success and growth. But this time they detailed in a roundtable discussion their mounting losses and grim outlook.
"It was ugly," said Glisan, who was in attendance at the meeting being run by Ken Lay.
Glisan recalled for jurors the comments of meeting attendee John Lavorato, at the time a high-ranking executive for Enron North America.
"He made the comment that he was glad he didn't have a gun or he would shoot himself," Glisan said.
Shoot himself? In fact, another "high-ranking executive" of Enron North America, the former chairman and chief executive and Skilling's self-proclaimed "best friend," did exactly that in January 2002.
